By Will Vandervort.

So why did Clemson and Auburn agree to play another home-and-home series starting in 2016? Because it makes sense, that’s why.

“We’re really happy to get Auburn. It’s going to be a great game,” Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich said on Wednesday. “It’s relatively close between both schools, so fan bases can travel back and forth.”

Clemson and Auburn announced on Wednesday the two Tigers will again play a home-and-home series in 2016 and 2017 thanks in large part to the success the series had in the 2010-‘12 games. In those three games, which Clemson won two, the two teams played an overtime classic on the Plains of Auburn in which Cam Newton led the SEC’s Tigers back from a 17-0 deficit. Clemson rallied from 14-points down to win a high-scoring affair the next year in Death Valley.

The ACC’s Tigers rallied to score the last 10 points in the 2012 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic in Atlanta. Ironically, the plans to play another two-game series this time around came when the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic approached both schools about a re-match.

“We had been talking with Auburn for a while,” Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich said. “It had been a circumstance where there had been some discussions about starting the 2016 season in the Chick-Fil-A Kickoff Classic. But as we looked at our schedule and Auburn looked at their schedule, playing a home and home in ’16 and ’17, and leaving ’18 and ’19 available for another home-and-home series, really worked out best for us.”

With Notre Dame coming to Clemson next year and the Tigers going there in 2020, Clemson just needs a big-time opponent to fill the 2018 and 2019 slots to secure a second quality non-conference opponent from another Big 5 Conference.

The Tigers have archrival South Carolina filling up the other spots. So who do the Tigers target next? Radakovich says he will like to look at everyone that’s available, though he does not want his football program to travel too far west – so don’t look for any home-and-home series with Southern Cal in the near future.

One possibility is against a Big XII opponent at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas to open the year, but Radakovich says that might be a little too difficult to pull off.

“Because of Notre Dame being in the conference and those even-numbered years where we have the ability to go on the road, playing in neutral-site games becomes a little more difficult, because our main rival, South Carolina, is not inside the conference,” he said. “So for Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Clemson, it makes some of those types of games much more difficult, if you want to maintain the fact that you have seven home games, and that’s certainly important for us.”

But don’t totally count out the possibility of Clemson playing another Big 5 Conference member on a neutral site to start a season. The Tigers have availability in both in 2021 and in 2024 for such a game. As The Clemson Insider reported earlier, Clemson will play Notre Dame in a home-and-home series in 2022 and 2023.

“If we can get someone to play ’19 and ’21, then maybe we can play a neutral in ’18. But we needed to get the ’16 and ’17 done,” Radakovich said. “That gives us a little bit of time to look at the different options moving forward.”

Radakovich said he has been approached by games in Orlando, Charlotte, Nashville and obviously Atlanta about playing a neutral site game.

“I think Atlanta probably does make the most sense, given the geography,” he said. “Charlotte certainly is on the table as well if they get more into this type of a game. But we would much prefer, if at all possible, to have a high-caliber opponent on a home-and-home series so that we can bring them here to Death Valley.”

And that’s what makes sense about playing Auburn.